Dropped England wing has his mojo back for Saturday's semi-final and says he
knows his celebrations wind people up but they are expressions of pure joy

Chris Ashton reckons he has not felt this liberated on the pitch for four years. Unencumbered by self-imposed pressure, not hamstrung by trying too hard to impress and now scoring tries for fun again, the England star who seemingly plummeted from ‘splash’ to ‘crash’ says he is embracing rugby life to the full.

“I feel I’ve got nothing to lose any more,” is the wing’s typically dramatic opening gambit at Saracens’ training ground before their Heineken Cup semi-final against Clermont on Saturday.

Being dropped from Stuart Lancaster’s squad during the Six Nations might have been seen by many as the culmination of Ashton’s dramatic descent from England’s cocksure match-winner to confidence-drained also-ran. Yet listening to Ashton’s engaging candour about how he has “come through the other side” after the most difficult period of his career is to appreciate how it might just have served as a kind of rebirth, reigniting the spirit and morale of one of the English game’s most singular talents.

Ashton may not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially those traditionalists who swear they can see his personality reflected through what they see to be disrespectful and arrogant try-scoring dives. Yet he comes over as likeably honest when he reflects on his England fall.

“I think there was a time when I probably didn’t belong in the England squad. I would accept that, even though at the time you don’t want to admit it,” he says. “I look back now and I’d agree some things I did weren’t up to the standard they should have been and a lot of that is because you’re trying too hard to get back to the place you were. The only answer for that is for a shock to happen, for you to be pushed out and to realise that you can actually relax a little.

“You’ve been through it, you understand why it happened, you got experience from that and recently I feel like I’ve just been playing rugby and enjoying myself again. Playing for the love of it almost.

“For a time, you lose that enjoyment a little bit because you’re fighting so hard to get it back and that actually makes it worse. Now I’m back to the point where I’m just playing rugby and not worrying about anything else or wondering what someone’s going to say. It doesn’t matter any more.”

He makes it sound as if a great weight has been lifted since his January axe. The last time he felt like this, he says, was in 2010 when he was Northampton’s try machine, just crashing into the England ranks and being voted the Premiership player of the year.

Saracens have benefited from him “feeling in a good place” with Ashton, fresh from the two tries which sank Ulster in the quarters, needing one on Saturday to equal the Heineken Cup try-scoring record of 10 in a season, set by Brive’s Sébastien Carrat in 1996-97.

Some things will not change, though, he smiles. Ashton is not remotely apologetic about the familiar try-scoring splashdown at Ravenhill which went down as well with the crowd, according to Eddie Butler, as “cold sick”.

“If people get offended by that, I’m not bothered in the slightest, mate. That’s up to them. They can take it or leave it,” shrugs Ashton with a smile.

“Whatever people think I do which upsets them, I don’t do it intentionally. The reason behind it all isn’t to upset them, or to show off. The dive is the thing which I think annoys most people but it’s something that I have no intention of doing until I cross the try line and it wouldn’t cross my mind anywhere else until that point.”

Still, he is adamant that he is neither a show-off, nor a showman. “I’ve genuinely never felt a bit like this. I get the same feeling scoring tries as I did when I was six years old in an amateur club. There’s no difference.” That is, a celebration of pure joy, not a wind-up.

Now that he is feeling so at home in his second season at Sarries – “I love the club, the way we train and get looked after. I’m pretty happy here,” he says – do not imagine that feeling this comfortable and content has blunted his England ambitions.

At 27, he reckons he is probably at his peak. “A World Cup on home soil can’t be missed, mate,” he also agrees with a laugh. If he fancies he can fight his way back into Lancaster’s team, it is because “I believe that I am playing some of the best rugby of my career”. Yet he says he has a new mindset about his international ambitions now. He is not going to obsess about regaining his place.

“If Stuart wants me to play then I’m there. It’s not something I can completely concentrate on the whole time, though, because that sends me off the other way and you end up thinking about everything else. That’s not how I work. I need to keep it simple.

“My only ambition right now is to play well against Clermont and win that game. Nothing else matters. The World Cup doesn’t matter; you might not get there, you might not be involved. That’s what I’ve learnt. The only thing that matters is this weekend. Sometimes, that was part of the problem, looking too far ahead.”

Certainly, he does not believe the England door has been closed to him, despite the electric likes of Jonny May and Jack Nowell having burst past.

Lancaster clearly remains a fan, having conceded, even when dumping Ashton, that “in terms of tracking the ball and getting on the end of things, he’s still the best”.

He says of the England wing battle: “I don’t think there’s anyone head and shoulders above right now. The last time I spoke to Stu at the end of the Six Nations, we spoke about these big games coming up for Saracens. I’ve got to take those opportunities.

“Forget about England, forget about anything else. In your career as a whole there’s not many people who’ve had this opportunity, a Heineken Cup semi-final at Twickenham. I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to play in a final [a losing one for Northampton against Leinster two years ago] and I want to get there again and win this time.”

Ashton, you sense, is too irrepressible a personality and too much of a jack-in-the-box talent to be kept down. During his lean, difficult spell, had he at any point wished he could have reinvented himself as a personality? “You’d be asking me to change who I am,” smiles Ashton. “And that is impossible.”